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Overview

Flute's Journey: The Life of a Wood Thrush by Lynne Cherry

This is a reverent environmental story of a wood thrush’s first year and his arduous first migrationacross thousands of milesfrom his nesting ground in the Belt Woods in Maryland to his winter home in Costa Rica, and back again. During his journey Flute encounters many perils, including natural predators and devastating habitat loss. “Cherry has a gift for sharing her knowledge through engaging fictional stories.”Booklist

Product Details

About the Author

LYNNE CHERRY has devoted her life to sharing her concern about environmental issues with others. Her important children's books also include The Armadillo from Amarillo and two tales from the Amazon rain forest: The Great Kapok Tree and The Shaman's Apprentice. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Editorial Reviews

This beautifully-illustrated story takes readers on an exciting journey through the first year of a wood thrush's life--from its hatching in a Maryland forest to its migration across the Gulf of Mexico to the Costa Rican rainforest and back again. Not only does this reverent environmental tale describe the perils faced by today's migratory songbirds (e.g. insects tainted with pesticides and a shrinking habitat), but it also presents a stunning account of the factors that ensure their survival (e.g. instinct, luck, and help from people who are working to protect habitat destruction).

Children's Literature - Debra Briatico

Environmentalist Lynne Cherry brings another story of vanishing wildlife and the importance of conservation efforts to this tale of the wood thrush. She tells the story of Flute, who begins his life in the Belt Woods of Maryland, through his first year of life, following his migration to the Monteverde Rain Forest in Costa Rica, and subsequent return to nest again in the Belt Woods. Through words and detailed illustrations, Cherry deftly describes the life of the wood thrush, including its habitat, predators, feeding requirements, and migration perils. The front and back inside covers show the location of the Belt Woods and the Monteverde Rain Forest, along with renderings of other birds that make their homes in both areas. In line with her environmental conservation views, Cherry donates a portion of the proceeds of this publication to protecting native forests.

Children's Literature - Mary Sue Preissner

Lynne Cherry acquaints young readers with the plight of a local bird whose habitat has undergone much change and diminution over the last several decades. In Flute's Journey she follows a young wood thrush born in Belt Woods, an old-growth forest in Maryland, as he makes his annual migration to Costa Rica and back. Though Cherry focuses on an individual bird, her text and watercolor illustrations emphasize the great web of life of which Flute is a small but important part. 1997, Harcourt Brace. Ages 4 to 9. Reviewer: Mary Quattlebaum

Children's Literature

When the snow flies, thousands of birds migrate south to avoid the icy temperatures and shortage of food. With canny understatement that gives the story its power, Cherry traces one wood thrush's flight from Maryland to Costa Rica, and back again. The trip is filled with risks, both natural and manmade. Flute must battle natural foes like cats and harsh weather along both legs of his journey. Forests where he once took refuge have become suburban sprawls, and lawn chemicals taint insects Flute eats, making him ill. Later when Flute meets his mate, a bird called Feather, they end up unknowingly raising a cowbird (its mother sneakily lays her egg in their nest), and lose one of their own babies. Cherry documents nature as it is today, without idealizing or fictionalizing the struggles of bird life. The story provides crucial, copiously-researched natural information for readers, backed up by an author's note. Bright, realistic illustrations give the book a picture-book look, but include plenty of detail, particularly in the lush rainforest settings where Flute holes up until spring.